


It's About Time

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Thea</p>
    </blockquote>





	It's About Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Thea

 

 

Trixie cranked the key on her alarm clock, mumbling about the injustice of having to set an alarm for New Year's Day. Before turning off her light, she propped the paper she'd prepared against said clock.

"Next year is going to be even better." She was going to make sure of it. Light out, Trixie crawled under the covers. In a few short moments she was out like the light.

Hours later, the loud clanging of her alarm woke her and she smacked around on her nightstand to quiet it. Her hand hit paper first and she sat upright and yelled out.

"Rabbit! Rabbit!" Pleased with herself, Trixie grabbed again for the clock. Giving it a good smack on top, effectively silencing it, she noted the time. "Eight? I'm up a whole hour early!" Putting the offending item back on the nightstand she rewarded herself. "Starting out the New Year with a nice nap," she thought as she drifted off.

When she woke again, the first thing she did was check the time.

"Nine-thirty! Drats! I'm going to be late!" In what was a fairly normal routine for her, Trixie jumped from bed to shower and get dressed. A stop in front of her mirror to assure she was at least presentable and she was off. Luckily, it hadn't snowed overnight and she was soon driving toward town. Next stop Wimpy's and the annual New Year's Day Bob-White meeting. A tradition that carried on even with them all in their 30's.

Honey and Di were waiting outside the burger shop, comparing purses. She laughed. "Only you two would ring in a new year by talking about your pocketbooks!"

Honey rolled her eyes at her friend's silliness before leaning over to hug her. "It's a Koobra Brynne," she told Trixie, as though that explained it all.

Di hugged Trixie as well. "And I'm insanely jealous. I'm usually the one on the cutting edge of fashion, but Honey beat me to this one."

The trio headed inside to wait for the male members of their group. "It was my holiday gift to myself. Got that bonus I'd been hoping for at work, and..."

Di cut her off. "You got it? That's phenomenal! That means they're going to offer you the head of department job, doesn't it? Honey that's fantastic! When did you find out? When will the official offer come through? Why didn't you tell us?"

Trixie smiled and nodded along to Di's questions but something troubled her. It had become harder for them all to keep in close touch with their jobs and schooling taking them away from Sleepyside and Trixie and Honey didn't talk every day as they used to. It was still unfathomable to her that she had missed Honey leaving her job at the clinic. She listened intently as Honey and Di talked excitedly about Honey's bonus, a hefty five figures, and her probable offer of a new position. Head of Acquisitions. A job that would have her traveling at least half the year, spending months at a time overseas. In places like Japan. Honey was a businesswoman! A high paid, jet setting, foreign language-learning businesswoman!

"You're a business mogul!" Trixie blurted out. She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. The diners who had paused to see what the commotion was smiled indulgently at Trixie and went back to their food.

"Not yet I'm not, Trix, but I'm certainly on my way. This new offer will be a huge step for me. Take me out of climbing the ladder status. If they offer this job, I'll be able to choose which ladder I want to be on top of."

"That's amazing!" Trixie smiled at her friend, proud of her and pleased for her, even if she was actually supposed to be working at a not for profit clinic in one of the boroughs. She looked at her two friends. Honey had always been stylish, but today she looked like Trixie remembered Mrs. Wheeler had when she was going to a party with her husband and his business associates. And she appeared completely at home in the outfit. Trixie glanced at her own faded jeans and hand made sweater and sighed. She'd never look like Honey now.

The guys arrived, stopping all business talk. Trixie felt like she hadn't seen her brothers in months, even though she'd seen Mart just last week. Brian, off with Doctors Without Borders, had missed Christmas, but arrived late last night. She moved to hug him first.

"Hey, Trix! Surprised you're up so early." It was a good-natured barb and she stuck her tongue out at him before putting her arms around him. Hair brushed against her hands, startling her.

"Brian! Are you becoming a hippie?" She hoped he took the small shake in her voice for attempted sarcasm.

Everyone laughed. "Dearest sister, you know it is Brian's greatest sadness not to have been born at the appropriate date to be an actual honest to goodness hippie. Don't tease the man." Mart chuckled at his own joke.

Brian swatted at his arm playfully and every one laughed with Mart.

"Hey! I can't help it if all you get to be is a crazy environmentalist and Go Green! motivator."

"My hair's not that long, Trix! I know I haven't seen you in a few months, but c'mon." He drew a hand over the ponytail at the base of his neck, smoothing it against his worn jacket, then sat down next to Honey. With her in a sleek black and white outfit completed by silver jewelry shining at her ears and wrists, they made quite a contrast.

Trixie sat down abruptly. "Of course. I'm just teasing." She was starting to wonder what was going on. "Mart, tell them what you were telling Moms at Christmas." Trixie needed a distraction and her loquacious brother could be counted on to talk for hours if allowed. Once he started to talk she tried to reason out what was happening. Unfortunately, what Mart was actually saying didn't match what she knew about him at all. Maui. And something about ... polo?

"What?" Trixie asked stupidly.

Mart gave her a look of extreme indulgence and repeated the story about being asked to try out for a professional polo team. When he finished Trixie turned to Dan.

"And you, Dan. What are you doing?"

"Six weeks at the Roundabout's limited run of Cabaret. I'm playing Emcee." He winked at her and sang, "Wilkomen, Bienvenue, Welcome," softly.

Trixie did the only reasonable thing she could think of.

She fainted.

When she came to, a circle of worried faces peered down at her. She looked at them each in turn. Mart looked too tan, something she hadn't noticed before, and Dan had pierced his ears? She blinked. Jim. Look at Jim, she thought, panic creeping up again. Jim's handsome face looked exactly as she remembered. His red hair was the right length, his skin the right tone and there was even a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Everything would be ok, Jim was there. She smiled up at her friends.

I'm fine. Just forgot to eat yesterday. I could use a hand up."

Jim put his hand forward and after a moment of confusion, she put her hand in his and allowed him to help her. She brushed off the rest of their inquiries, picked up her menu and announced, "I guess I'll be having the big breakfast today!"

Her friends laughed, turning to their own menus. Mart and Dan discussed menu staples they'd been dreaming about while away, Brian fretted the lack of vegetarian choices and Honey and Di plotted the lowest caloric intake that will still be worthy of a Wimpy's meal. Trixie tried to make sense of it all. She felt the same, and she recognized all of her friends. Mostly. They were all very different though. This was either some elaborate dream she was having or the universe was severely out of whack. Her money was on the latter.

Once back in her apartment, Trixie began searching for information. She was relieved to find the apartment looked very much like she thought it should, save for just a few things. Including what looked like some sort of electric device on her desk where her daily planner calendar usually lived. It was plugged into the wall, so she pushed the only button she could find. There was a soft whirring and it lit up. The word Google, if it was actually a word, was printed across the top.

What in the world?

She paced in her small living room, picking up a photograph here and there. She paused at one of her with all the Bob-Whites with Mart in the center in a cap and gown. "I remember this. This is his college graduation." But the hairstyles and clothes didn't look the way she remembered them looking. She set the picture down and picked up the one next to it. It was Brian in a jungle with some kids, all dark skinned and smiling hugely. Then a shot of Jim cutting the ribbon on the Frayne School. Honey and Di looking perfect and holding cocktails. Another of the whole group, smiling and crowded around Dan under a marquee of a show. Trixie squinted. RENT. She had no idea what that was, but they all looked ten years younger.

"All right, Trixie Belden, time to do your best detecting work."

She'd lost all track of time when she heard the knocking.

"Trixie, are you ok?" Jim yelled through the door.

"Sorry, I'm coming!" She scrambled to clean up some of the stuff she'd been looking through and let him in. "Hi!"

He laughed. "Hi. I figured I'd come check on you, it's not like you to faint." Jim gave her a quick kiss and shook off the light snow on his head and shoulders.

Trixie looked dumfounded. Jim has kissed her. In her own reality, for she'd come to the conclusion she was decidedly not in her own reality, they'd never gotten past the holding hands phase. Jim had gone off to college and married a schoolmate. Trixie had remained single and never quite got over Jim.

"I just forgot to eat yesterday and then didn't sleep well. I'm fine." Trixie smiled brightly and changed the subject. "Did you make any resolutions?"

Jim raised an eyebrow but allowed the change. Trixie closed her eyes and listened as Jim talked about his plans for Frayne School in the new year, ideas he wanted to implement and new ways to motivate his troubled students. It all sounded perfect, just like Jim. Her Jim. And apparently this Jim. The thought gave her confidence.

For the rest of the week Trixie spent as much time with her friends as she could. It was exhausting work, always trying to act like she knew what was going on, but needing to know more about these versions of the people she knew and loved. She asked all the questions she could until they started looking at her funny.

There were decided advantages, however. Mart, having grown tired of telling her about the wonders of his island life had bought her a ticket to come visit him in Hawaii.

"Consider it your birthday and Christmas gifts for the coming year," he'd quipped, handing it to her as he came into the kitchen at Crabapple Farm. They were all gathering for a family dinner.

"Hey!" Brian plucked the paper with her flight info on it out of her hands. "I don't get one?"

Mart glared at him. "No, but you should feel free to buy her off-set vouchers if you want."

Brian stuck his tongue out at Mart.

"Trix, you're gonna' love Hawaii. And I bought the ticket so you could see me play polo, since you seem to have a sudden interest in everything I'm doing that isn't farming. Which is everything."

Trixie blushed. "Hey! There's nothing wrong with farming!"

He rolled his eyes at her. "No, nothing at all. If you're from the Midwest. You know," he said, now addressing the entire room, "five years of military service in various still to be un-named places and I've still never heard anything stranger."

"All right, Mart, that's enough teasing your sister. Dinner is ready."

Trixie had been delighted to find Jim and Honey included in family dinner. Some thing, it seemed, transcended.

Another advantage had been her relationship with Jim. After his brief kiss on New Year's Day, there had been lots of opportunity for physical affection and even a blissful evening of kissing and snuggling on her couch before watching a movie and falling asleep together. She'd surprised herself by being somewhat sad Jim had been nothing but a gentleman, never once pushing her into something a little more. But waking up curled in his arms had been the highlight of her bizarre week.

By the third all her friends were heading back to their respective homes. Honey and Dan lived in Manhattan. Together actually, though Honey seemed as devoted to Brian as ever. They even had a third roommate and Dan reminded her she had yet to meet him.

"He's really great, Trix. Come in and see the show and we can all grab dinner afterwards, ok?"

Trixie agreed, bolstered by his smile and Honey's look of approval when she mentioned it later.

"I'm headed up to the school to check on things anyway. Why don't you go in tonight and I'll meet you there in a few days. We can spend the weekend and come back on Monday morning." Jim slipped an arm around her shoulders. " We can see Dan's show and catch that exhibit at the Met I've been wanting to see,"

And a plan was made. Trixie gave her mother a quick call on her cell phone, a device she was still agog about, and Jim ran her back to her apartment to pack. An hour later she was bundled up on the train with Honey and Dan. Honey spent the trip making notes in her laptop -something Trixie had learned all about the other day- and talking on her own cell phone. Dan had fallen asleep as soon as they'd left the station. Trixie watched the world go by outside the window.

This world she'd been thrust into was like something out of a science fiction movie. Phones that fit into pockets without being connected to the wall and hundreds of TV channels. Her friends were in places she'd never expected them and her own life was great. Better in some ways than the one she'd been snatched out of. She wondered if the Trixie from 2008 had found herself suddenly in 1961, struggling to make due with what were antiques to her. She smiled at the thought. If she ever made it back to her own life she'd be happy to see some of those things again. All this technology was great but the pace people kept was so hurried.

Trixie had two more weeks before she had to return to her own job and it was a good thing, too. An afternoon of tearing her apartment apart and an hour of instructions from a book at the library had yielded very important bits of information. One, the thing on her desk was a computer that she could now use badly. Second being that she taught criminology at the local community college. Possibly the best thing she'd learned was that Trixie was also a compulsive scrap booker.

There had been dozens of them in her shelves. Studying had never been one of her strong suits but she was a woman on a mission. She'd poured over them, taking notes and committing details to memory. Over riding the things she once knew to be true, with things that have proven to be true. Brian wasn't a doctor at all, but an impassioned environmentalist, combining his love for all things green with business savvy gleaned from his fiancé immense business knowledge to convert companies to green business practices. He was even well paid for it. Mart had joined the army and been in an elite service group. After that he'd moved to Maui, looking for a life that held no stress. He surfed -and played polo- and ran a low-key resort. There'd been an entire book dedicated to pictures of Mart, Brian, Trixie and their parents making the resort environmentally friendly.

Her friends had been just as well represented. Honey's career detailed in articles and promotion party invitations as well as pictures. Programs from Dan's many shows in high school, college, off-Broadway and finally Broadway.

The first picture of Di in a lab coat sent Trixie reeling. Soft spoken, shy little Di had turned out to be a true geek. There were articles about her being asked to join research teams at no less than four highly respected labs. There'd been a great picture of Di in one of Sleepyside Junior-Senior High's labs though, goggles over her beautiful eyes and a smile across her face that Trixie rarely saw.

And then there was Jim. There'd been far more pictures of him then anyone else. Pictures of Jim and of the two of them together. Jim at school, home, in her apartment, in places she knew and some she didn't. Page after page of pictures chronicling their relationship. Dances and group dates and even what appeared to be weekends away, just the two of them.

She was insanely proud of all of them, even if they weren't really hers.

The train pulled into the station, breaking Trixie out of her daydreaming.

With most everyone gone, Trixie had lots of time to study all the things she needed to and very little time to think about how to get back where she belonged. The new term started and Trixie taught her very first class. Her students were young and jaded. It was challenging and scary. The details of the cases they talked about terrified her and many days she went home wishing to find herself in her own time, safe from the horrors of the 21st century.

She kept going, though. Made time to see her boyfriend, visit her friends in New York and finally meet Dan's boyfriend. Saw her parents and took a computer class at night. All in all, she hoped she was blending in. Doing whatever it was the Trixie who belonged here would do.

It only made her miss her real home more.

When January became February, Trixie realized she wasn't going home soon and possibly not ever. She gave in to the feeling for one weekend, avoiding phone calls and friends. Once it was over, she was committed to her new life. Trixie tackled classes, the ones she taught and the ones she took, with renewed purpose. She packed away the memories of her old life and worked on being the Trixie these people knew and loved.

Jim was the first one to notice anything was different.

"Trix? Are we okay? You've been a little. Well. Less you, lately." They were watching TV in her living room. A standing Saturday night date, she'd learned.

"Of course! I just needed to," she paused looking for a way to explain it to him without hurting his feelings, "sort of review everything. Does that make any sense?"

He looked at her for a moment and she felt guilty for enjoying this clearly special relationship that wasn't at all hers. Then he smiled and kissed her forehead. "For you, Trix, it makes perfect sense. "

Satisfied that he wasn't going to push the issue, she snuggled into his embrace and turned to the television.

Jim may have been the most observant of them, but it was Honey who figured everything out for her. They were in the elevator of Honey's apartment building on their way to a day of shopping.

"You know what I was thinking about the other day?"

"Nope, but I bet you're gonna' tell me," Trixie teased.

"I am, if you let me." Honey continued, "I was thinking about all those silly superstitions we had when we were kids. Do you remember that Rabbit! Rabbit! thing you always tried to remember to do at the beginning of each month? What exactly was that anyway? I never could tell if you were making a wish or hoping for good luck."

Trixie stood with her mouth open then leaned over and impulsively kissed Honey. "You are a genius!"

"No, that's Di, but thanks. Now. What did I do?"

Trixie gave her a half-baked explanation of her declaration and what the ritual was for and they spent the day happily reminiscing. Honey, of course, did most of the talking.

She could never really explain what Honey had done for her, but she was grateful. In the week she had left, Trixie prepared things, made a scrapbook for her future self to let her know what had happened to her life while she'd been gone and kissed her boyfriend goodbye. For a few hours. She was really going to miss that part.

Finally, on the night of the 29th, with March on the horizon, Trixie crawled into bed. The paper reminding her was on the nightstand, not that she thought she was going to sleep, but just in case. It took a while, but she finally gave in and fell asleep right before midnight.

"Rabbit! Rabbit!"

Trixie bolted upright in her bed, yelling out in her sleep, startling herself awake. It was still dark out and after a moment of worry about ruining the trick, she went back to sleep.

Her room was warm, sun streaming in through her window and some wonderful smell was wafting into her room. She stretched and sat up. Should she say it again? Would it spoil the charm? Was she kidding herself?

Before she could act on her decision- to repeat the chant- there was a knock on her door.

"Trixie? It's 9am and Jim is here at the door. You've got chores before you can go riding with him and no getting out of them!"

She scrambled out of bed, opening the door to find her mother standing there, apron tied around her trim waist and her Saturday morning smile on her face her young face. Trixie hugged her with abandon. "I'll go tell Jim, Moms." She squeezed once and grabbed her bathrobe before hurrying down the stairs. In the kitchen, snow on his shoulders and cheeks pink from the cold, was 20 year old Jim Frayne. Glancing quickly up the stairs Trixie hugged him too, giving him a swift kiss on the mouth before telling him she'd be done with her chores in half an hour.

"Don't go anywhere. Don't ever go anywhere," she told him, heading back upstairs to change. Life was so very very good. Strange and beyond explanation, but achingly good.

Jim smiled his brilliant smile at her. "I'll be right here, Trixie. Promise."

Everything was just how it was supposed to be.

 


End file.
